There Is A New "Most Crowded Trade" On Wall Street

The monthly Bank of America Fund Managers Survey (FMS) is perhaps best known for exposing Wall Street's cognitive dissonance, if not schizophrenia, to the world because while on one hand survey respondents cry over soaring corporate and global leverage, at the same time they rush to 5x oversubscribe Italian 30Y bonds (using other people's money of course) despite knowing it will all end in tears.

However, while generally perceived as a novelty sentiment index to be faded, with little information value, the monthly survey does provide some useful indicators of herd sentiment, two of which have been especially notable in recent years, namely what is the "biggest tail risk" for the market, and what is "the most crowded trade" at any moment.

Of note, there were no major surprises in the February edition of the FMS - which polled 173 participants with $515BN in AUM - when it comes to what Wall Street saw as the biggest tail risk this month. As a reminder, the dominant concerns of investors since 2011 have been Eurozone debt & potential breakdown; Chinese growth; populism, quantitative tightening & trade wars. And, in February, it was more of the same as trade war concerns rose slightly and remain the biggest "tail risk" for FMS investors (11 of past 12 months), but concerns are substantially below the peak seen in Jul'18.

What is most notable about this series is that whereas last month Quantitative Tightening was the 2nd biggest "tail risk" fear, following the Fed's dovish reversal, almost nobody is worried about the Fed suddenly pulling the rug from under the market.

Where there was a surprise this month, was in what investors saw as the "most crowded traded."

Like in the case of the "biggest tail risk", here the market leadership has been relatively narrow since 2013, shifting from high yielding debt; long US$; long Quality; long Tech.... and now "Long Emerging Markets" is the most crowded trade for the first time on record...

Tyler Durden (pseudonym) is the lead writer at ZeroHedge. Tyler represents the idea that a return to truly efficient markets is a possibility and ...
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Tyler Durden (pseudonym) is the lead writer at ZeroHedge. Tyler represents the idea that a return to truly efficient markets is a possibility and a necessity.

After having experienced the inner workings of capitalism at various asset managers and advisors, Tyler believes that the current model is flawed. He argues that a deleveraging at every level of modern society is needed to reinspire the fundamental entrepreneurial spirit.